Too Busy to Be Creative

I have no time. None. Between University, Work, the everyday survival necessities such as buying food, washing clothes, breathing and trying to have a semblance of a social life - I have no time left. The time I do have I want to shut my brain off and have it relax for a while.

So I find myself in a position that I don't enjoy - having very little time for my 'creative' activites. I try to make time to take my photos - this generally is squeezed in when inspiration and good weather hit between lectures and on my pedestrian journeys through Auckland to and from places. I have bugger all time to devote to my drawing or working on my illustrations.

Bugger. All.

I find that the time that I do spend isn't quality either - an hour here and there doesn't really seem to achieve much - its not cohesive, it doesn't have a cummulative effect on my work or how I feel about it. So it doens't seem to progress, and I get despondent and this leads me to making less and less time to these things.

Day to day life is draining my creative juju. The daily drudgery of commuting, of attending to life's appointments, of the 9 - 5.....it leaves me feeling uncreative. Not just less creative..... uncreative. I really have began to question myself. Is this just me? Am I just not creative enough? Maybe I am not cut of the right cloth to express myself in these ways....maybe I am doing it wrong or wasting my time etc etc...self doubt....etc. So in short my lifestyle of late and my inability to really devout myself to it has made me doubt my ability to do it at all.

Within my Neuropsych studies I have come across studies and research that seem to create a division between a 'creative' brain and an 'intellectual' - one that is imaginative, in touch with magical ideation (even though this can lead to extremes like hallucinations and schizoid behaviours!) The intellectual side is more adept at language and academic measures of achievement and IQ. (This is all to do with information regarding Cerebral asymmetry). This dichotomy is not black and white - in fact it in all likelihood it is not a dichotomy but like most things a spectrum. But does that mean that one cannot be academically intellectual and also be imaginative and creative? To have a freedom of expression and not be limited to concepts and ideas of those around us or before us?

Maybe I am trying to be creative but my brain is not geared up that way? I am trying to fly when I blatantly don't have wings. It is hard to know - and I probably will never know, even if there was a particualr biological marker for it, I probably will not ever get this 'test'. But it does make me question (for my own purposes and as well as a global sense) are there people out there who cannot be creative in an artistic and imaginative manner? (I limit the concept of creative here - as I have found creative is open to interpretation and is applied in a vast array of areas outside of art) I don't mean 'people who don't want to be' artistic either - I know that there are those who just don't - they find their expression in creative formats outside of the art world (my friend Maree is a 'Wood Scientist' - yes...that is a a real thing. And as discussed in previous blogs - the science realm is dependent on creative thought and inspiration). I also don't mean in a technical sense - personally I can draw and paint and take photos quite well, within the confines of using design models and artists I can imitate quite well and have the technical capacity to do so (god knows whether its good or not but I can do it). I mean are there people who can be imaginative, who can generate creative ideas, creative and artistic stories, embrace the magical ideation - and are there those who cannot. It seems possible (and this is what scares me) that someone can be technically able to perform the expression part (the pen to paper part) - something that is able to be learned, from observation and experience - but they are incapable of generating the ideas and the concept of that expression itself.

History is riddled with imitators, with infamous copycat artists, back in historical times such as with Medieval guilds and even into the renaissance - artists works were finished by his team but generated by his mind.(Hence works of art art 'attributed' to an artist's 'school' but sometimes cannot be confirmed if not signed by the artist) And this distinction was created - the idea was the art. The birth of concept art. This idea was furthered by Avante garde artists in more contemporary times. Found object art championed (and in my opinion) created by Marcel Duchamp and his "Fountain" (pictured) questioned even more 'what is art?' and the concept that art is what is conceptualised by an artist.

Mass production, such as that by Bauhaus artists maintained that their end product was still 'objets d′art' as it was the concept that carried the artists intention, and this was not reduced or compromised by mass mechanical production or repetition.

Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and many others utilised mechanical printing formats and this idea of mass consumption and production to further challenge the definition of art and create more distance between the hand of the artist and art product.

I could go on but I won't, except to mention that there is a NZ contemporary group that are working with contemporary, post-modern strains of this thought. Gambia Castle is a brilliant example.

My whole point out of this tangent was to draw attention to the fact that the importance is in the concept and the generation of this concept, in the imagination of the artist - not how the express it or how well. Technical virtuosity becomes irrelevant to a degree. So with this, I fear, I am petrified - what happens if I am not capable of this? What if I am unable of original imagination and creativity? What happens if I am neurological predisposed to being a 'non-creative'? Am I just wasting my time?

Answers to these questions don't come readily - and I guess I am going to have to figure it out as I go and keep trying until I realise either way. I thought that I would include you all in my neuroses and over-analysis of what artistic creativity is and how this relates to my current 'creative crisis'. Hopefully this is the 'writer's block' so commonly referred to and will pass.)